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We are the soul of a newspaper. Not just any newspaper. We are the soul of the Toronto Sun from back in the day when it was the tabloid everyone in Toronto talked about. We are the people who helped make it happen. Sadly, most of us are long gone from the Sun. Many are now deceased. But when we were all a part of the Sun, as it was, it was a vibrant, kick ass paper that captured the impossible dream.

Sorry to hear about the job losses. My heart goes out to anyone who got one of the layoff notices. That was me in 2009 when Sun Media axed about 10 per cent of its work force. I ended up with a better job in a market I always wanted. Keep the faith.

They're going to have to cover that $18-million deficit they're running on Stunned TV somehow when the CRTC denies the ridiculous mandatory carriage plea in a world of cable-cutters and Internet streaming. No one's buying what they're selling except about 20,000 mouth-breathers in markets where there are no dental records, all the DNA is the same and banjo music is big.

You're a little harsh on the viewership demographic, but the core point is correct: There's not enough of a demand in Canada for this brand of talk-radio-with-headshots. TV is a far more fragmented market than it used to be. There is still no logical reason for mandatory carriage.

How sad. On Thursday spoke to a reader that made a point to transferred to our reader sales manager to tell him they will not renew..."I don't think you'll be here in three months" was his comment. Indeed sad. Now the readers (what few there are left) have caught on to the mess we are in. How sad truly sad.

16:20 you hit it on the head. We have always had grumbling in the community about the newspaper because that's just that way it is in this business. But now there is a lack of confidence about our existence. This is the biggest difference. When there is no confidence that your product will be around in three months or next year, advertisers start to abandon you and readers abandon you. The death ball has started an unstoppable roll to the bottom.

I know Sun Media pulled out of Dresden and I'm guessing they likely abandoned Bothwell as well. I'm sure the loss of a presence in the actual communities the paper was attempting to serve was detrimental to the overall success of the publication.

Sorry to hear about Dresden, though the paper has long gone without an actual dedicated reporter for the publication. While I was punted during the November 2012 cull, I have a number of friends still within the chain that are remain in a constant state of anxiety about what silly boot will drop next.Was Dresden a paid paper? That seems to have made a difference with Stunned Media's accounting crew.

You say whether a paper is paid or not makes a difference. Is it better to be paid or free? We are a free paper. You said people are in a constant state of anxiety and that is true out West too. You never know what they will do next.

Amherstburg and Leamington both had free weeklies as competition in their markets. If they didn't offer their papers free as well, their demise likely would have came a lot sooner. After all, what advertiser would't want to hit 9-12,000 homes in a free paper as opposed to 2-4,000 homes in a paid paper?

The conversion of some weeklies to free in Ontario in the past month is one last effort to continue them in spite of the fact advertising has been falling and readership has also been falling. When discussion turned to closing them, the 'free' option was put on the table as a 'trial' solution. It will be interesting to see which of the affected papers survive past 2014

Free or not, content matters. The Metroland papers in the GTA are for the most part free at least three times a week. There recently have been times I needed a wheel barrel to carry the paper in, it was so thick with ads. They are relentlessly local. Are Quebecor weeklies relentlessly local? I ask because I have no access to them.

Quebecor has multiple Ontario weeklies that technically have no staff. Ads are sold by reps from nearby larger papers and reporters from nearby larger papers write stories. Even the phone numbers get rerouted to the nearby large paper. Communities notice that their 'community' papers have no community in it and we continually insult them by running inhouse ads that say we are part of their community

Leamington and A'burg's competition came in long after those papers had taken root.

I believe it is a lot of things, and content is definitely a big one. When you've got a skeleton crew of editorial types tweeting, Facebooking, uploading to documentum, downloading, shooting video and feeding the Mothership, something has got to give.

That being said, I still believe in print.

How is that the accountants and no. types at the top never seem to have to account for pouring all kinds of coin into the non revenue making digital stuff or, dare I say it? SUN TV.

local? hardly at all anymore. more people stop because of content now, more than ever. there was a day not too long ago that all of the community papers were, for the most part a very big part of the community. We covered a little bit of everything, and did it well. today we have become the "other guy" that is the last thought in the minds of the few readers we cling to. instead of trying to keep them happy, we though hastily written tidbits, with little effort put into the entire story. not because the journalist can't to it, they just have no time. push digital, that's the motto that is being lost, no one buys the digital, they look at it for free and complain because there is nothing there to read. now advertisers are looking for more "deals" after all how can you expect someone to pay the rates for falling readership? they won't and it shows in the bottom line. the end is very close for some of the marginal papers...sadly we're all becoming marginal.

We are a weekly and yes we are hyper local. Odd to hear it called a Quebecor weekly. We were once Bowes. It wasn't bad when we were first bought out by Sun Media it wasn't so bad. Michael Sifton toured many weekly papers and even took us all out for lunch. At least he seemed to value people. Sure the global economic downturn hurt the industry but sometimes I wonder if PKP used that as an excuse to cut as deep as he did. I hesitate to call him "he" because he can't be human. Can't have a soul.

Well, we'll have to wait and see what happens now that SUN TV has been denied in their quest for free carriage. Thank goodness for the CRTC having SOME brains!! What this means for the fate of the company? Who knows. I hope it means they can stop patching that $17million/year leak with their weeklies. . . .

That $17M 'loss' figure that keeps getting bandied about is in itself another Quebcor lie… er, spin job.

Isn't it curious that the 17 million the company claims it is losing is exactly what they stood to make if their repulsive and unwatchable channel had received mandatory carriage?

Its all about the framing. Little Junior Pierre claiming that he was 'losing' money simply because he wasn't getting it.

Quebecor is certainly not spending seventeen million dollars a year on the no-budget network, absolutely no way. Think about it.

a) They have no overhead at all - the "studios" are inside their nearly empty newspapers, so they aren't paying for real estate.

b) The content is taken from the newspapers, so there is no writing. Any location video is shot by newspaper staff photographers.

c) The talking heads work for a pittance, because having a platform to spout their various agendas is valuable to them. They get their real money from other sources (the ethical oil astroturf group, religious ministries, various back-doors from the conservative party, etc)

At most, Quebecor are paying to lease a couple of satellite trucks and a few substandard part-time salaries for a handful of technicians. Nowhere near 17 million bucks a year.

Bev Ponton, publisher of a Sun Media daily in St. Thomas, Ontario announced her retirement two weeks ago to staff effective late in September with her replacement being Sun Media's senior group publisher Linda Leblanc. Leblanc is also the publisher of the Sarnia daily and weeklies in Petrolia and London. We wonder if Ponton is really a cutback rather than a retirement? If so, does it mean corporately there is a chance of widespread cuts coming around Sept. 24-27?

The Toronto Sun Family: 1971 - 2018

Current and former Sun Media employees, this blog is for you. We'd like to hear your feelings about the Sun, pro or con, your experiences and if no longer with Sun Media, what you are doing today. There is no "I" in Toronto Sun Family. Just "we."